Thursday, October 22, 2015

Something-American

One-quarter English, one-quarter Irish, one-quarter Scottish,
one-quarter German, I would tell people if they asked me,
but this strange genealogical math doesn’t account for the 1/132nds of Danish
and French and all the unregistered names through the hundreds of years my
mother’s mothers have been in the United States

I’m
just American, I used to shrug. There were
African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Iraqi-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and
then there was me, it seemed, the garden variety American, with nothing for my hyphen to
hitch itself to.

There must have been a point where my
ancestors made the switch, swapped their hyphens for a new descriptor – White –
Scots and Brits and Germans swimming in the melting pot that traded identity
for privilege. They lost the Irish temper and stepped into a culture ready-made
for them, one stained with legends of superiority and lies about what they
deserved.

An unwritten trade, but a trade it was, and
as their daughter’s daughter I feel no kinship with the heritage they left. It always
felt easier to define myself by what I was not, and so I checked the boxes:
Caucasian/White. Not Hispanic. I am not Black; I am not European; I am not
Asian; I am not ethnic, I lied to myself, I am the blank palette, white like a
coloring book, or like rising dough, not yet baked.

In cultural exchanges, I always felt I had
nothing to offer. My ancestors had already gone before and opened their arms,
spreading out diseased blankets and hatchets and hoes, burning their language
into people’s throats and their religion into people’s hearts and I walked
behind them, their current slapping against my knees.

I am the daughter of my father and my
mother. They are White like I am, just White, one-quarter English, one-quarter
Irish, one-quarter Scottish, one-quarter German, but only if you ask them. They
passed on to me skin that blisters in the sun, a freckling nose, and yellow
hair. They passed on their faith and their optimism, their value of books, hard
work, and education, their stubbornness and their pragmatism, and also the
advantages they have in renting a house, in being offered a job, in walking
fearlessly down streets at night.

I never felt a pull of heritage more
strongly than when I left my country. I am White, and my color means I must be
from the U.S. (they also yell “Gringa!” at the girls from Denmark). I am
conspicuous here and people are curious here, which means for the first time I
am asked to describe my culture, to own my culture, to represent a country that
is more diverse than I can explain.

Two hundred years ago the immigrants that
were my father’s fathers came to a country that asked them to leave behind what
made them different. Here today, as an immigrant, or a visitor at least, my
culture is valued, sometimes more than the culture here. What power that speaks
to – how far the culture my ancestors adopted has spread.

It’s a spool I’m still unraveling, this
grappling with what it means to be who I am and where I’m from. But I no longer
see myself as the default, and that is the beginning. I cannot lie and pretend I
am not shaped by my heritage, even if what was once ethnicity has been ameliorated
into something tamer and broader, suburbs and college loans, lunchmeat sandwiches
with iceberg lettuce and casseroles made from canned soup.

History continues to exist even as time
moves forward. Though we are not defined by the distant past we are certainly
shaped by it, I have been shaped by it, and to know it well is to know better
who I am.